The Centre disclosed that defaults in credit cards increased to Rs. 5,094 crore last fiscal as against Rs. 2,852 crore the previous year.

The Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee said that the bad debts accounted for 17 percent of the total outstanding against the cards as compared to 10 percent a year ago.

At the end of the fiscal 2008-09, there were 2.46 card holders in the country.

Maximum people held ICICI cards. ICICI cards constituted 30 percent (77.82 lakh)of the total followed by HDFC at 43.88 lakh.

Amongst the public lenders, State bank topped the list with 27.23 lakh card holders at the end of March 2009.

Amongst the foreign banks, Citibank issued maximum cards at 26.40 lakh, followed by HSBC at 19.75 lakh and Standard Chartered at 11.45 lakh.

Lenders have become cautious regarding credit cards. Recently ICICI announced that it would block all its credit cards in case of default on one.